Chinese 323 Home and the Return (1)

"Pick Ferns, Pick Ferns" (No. 167 of the Book of Poetry)

 

Pick ferns, pick ferns,

Ferns are sprouting.

Return, return,

The year is dusking.

No house, no home,

The Xianyun are the sole cause.

No time to rest,

The Xianyun are the sole cause.

 

Pick ferns, pick ferns,

Ferns are soft.

Return, return,

Hearts are sorrowful.

Sorrowful hearts burn, burn.

Now hunger, now thirst.

Garrison here and there,

No message home.

 

Pick ferns, pick ferns,

Ferns are coarse.

Return, return,

The tenth month is here.

King's affairs still undone,

No time to rest,

And sorrow pierces heart.

We go and return not.

 

What is blooming?

Flowers of the cherry.

Whose imposing chariot?

The general's.

War-chariot is yoked,

Four horses so tall.

How dare we settle?

One month, three battles.

 

Ride the four horses.

Four horses martial in gait.

The general rides behind.

Besides them, lesser men.

Four horses, a grand file.

Ivory bow-ends, fish-bone quiver.

How dare we slake?

The Xianyun are wide awake.

 

When we set out,

Willows dangled green.

Now I return,

Sleets in a mist.

We drag along.

Now thirst, now hunger.

My heart is full of sorrow.

No one knows our plaint.

 

Wang Wei (701-761)

"Farewell to Qiwu Qian on His Return Home After Failing the Examination"

 

Under sage rule there are no recluses:

Brilliant talents all come to serve at court.

This caused you, who dwelled on the eastern mountain,

To be unable to go and pick some ferns.

Arriving, you found the ruler's gate was distant,

But who should say, "Our Way has failed"?

Yangzi and Huai rivers you crossed at Cold Food time,

In Chang'an and Luoyang you mended spring clothes.

I will pour some wine at Changdao postillion:

You, my like-minded, are abandoning me.

Soon you will be floating with cassia oar,

And in no time will knock on your brushwood gate.

Distant trees will accompany the traveler;

A lone citywall faces the dusking glow.

"By chance my counsel has not been followed,"

But do not say that close friends are few.

 

 

"Farewell to a Friend Returning South"

 

For a myriad miles spring should have ended;

On the three rivers wild geese are also scarce.

Joining the sky, the Han River is broad.

A lone traveler returns to the city of Ying.

In the country of Yun paddy sprouts are lush;

Among people of Chu zizania grains are plump.

I imagine your parent will lean on their gate and gaze

And recognize your Laolai robe from afar.

 

Line 8: Laolaizi was a recluse noted for his extreme filial piety. Even at the age of seventy he would dress in colorful clothes and play like a child in order to amuse his parents.

 

Bai Juyi/Po Chü-yi (771-846)

 

"To My Brothers and Sisters Adrift in Troubled Times, This Poem of the Moon"

 

Since the disorders in the south og the River and the famine in the inside of the Pass, my brothers and sisters have been scattered. Looking at the moon, I express my thoughts in this poem, which I send to my eldest brother at Fuliang, my seventh brother at Yuqian, my fifteenth brother at Wujiang and my younger brothers and sisters at Fuli and Xiagui.

 

My heritage lost through disorder and famine,

My brothers and sisters flung eastward and westward,

My fields and gardens wrecked by the war,

My own flesh and blood become scum of the street,

I moan to my shadow like a lone-wandering wild-goose

I am torn from my root like a water-plant in autumn:

I gaze at the moon, and my tears run down

For hearts, in five places, all sick with one wish.

 

 

Li Shangyin/Li Shang-yin (ca. 813-ca. 858)

"Written on a Rainy Night to Be Sent Northward"

 

You ask the date of my return--no date has been set.

The night rain over the Ba Mountains swells the autumn pond.

O when shall we together trim the candle by the west window,

And talk about the time when the night rain fell on the Ba Mountains?

 

 

Su Shi/Su Shih (1037-1101)

"Mid-Autumn Moon"

 

Six years the moon shone at mid-autumn;

five years it saw us parted.

I sing your farewell song;

sobs from those who sit with me.

The southern capital must be busy,

but you won't let the occasion pass:

hundred-league lake of melted silver,

thousand-foot towers in the pendant mirror--

at third watch, when songs and flutes are stilled

and figures blur in the clear shade of threes,

you return to your north hall rooms,

cold light glinting on the dew of leaves;

calling for wine, you drink with your wife

and tell the children stories, thinking of me.

You have no way of knowing I've been sick,

that I face the pears and chestnut, cup empty,

and stare east of the old riverbed

where buckwheat blossoms spread their snow.

I wanted to write a verse to your last years song

but I was afraid my heart would break.

 

"Eastern Slope"

 

No. 1

 

An abandoned camp that no one tends,

Toppled walls overgrown with grasses.

Who would waste his muscles on it?

At year's end the effort won't be repaid.

Only a lone wanderer

Whose fate of hardship has no escape.

So he comes to gather up the broken tiles,

A year of drought, the soil poor.

Hard-pressed amid weeds and brambles,

He hopes to scrape off an inch of crop.

Putting down the plough, he sighs,

"When will my grain be piled high?"

 

No.2

 

The neglected fields are now overgrown

But each plot, high and low, will have its use.

I'll plant rice on the lowland marshes

Jujubes and chestnuts on the eastern rise.

A Shu gentleman living south of the river

Has promised to send mulberry seeds.

Good bamboo is not hard to transplant,

But watch it doesn't spread our of control.

Finally I must choose a good spot

On which to build my house.

My servant boy, burning dead grasses,

Runs to say he's found a hidden wall.

I don't dare set a date for a hearty meal,

But at least my drinking gourd is assured!

 

No. 3

 

There used to be a small stream

That came from behind the distant peak.

Flowing through the city and past the settlement,

It carried filth away, made wormwood thick.

It continued on to Ke Embankment,

Ten mu of fish and shrimp.

In the drought this year the stream dried up,

Dead duckweed stuck to cracked clods of earth.

Last night clouds came from the southern hills,

Rain soaked the soil deeper than a plowshare.

Trickling along, it found the old streambed,

Knowing I mean to cultivate this weedy plot.

Muddy celery still had its dormant roots,

See there, a single inch-long stalk appears.

When will the snowy sprouts poke through

So I can prepare braised spring dove?

 

No. 4

 

I plant rice before the Qingming Festival

The happy event to come-I can count the days.

Fur in the sky will darken the spring marsh,

Needles in the water will bring shouts of joy.

Transplanting will last until the start of summer,

Happily I'll watch the wind-blown leaves rise.

In bright moonlight I'll see dew climb the plants,

Pearls strung one by one on a silken thread.

In autumn when the stalks are heavy with frost,

They'll bend low and knock against each other.

All I'll hear, from among the dikes and paths,

Will be grasshoppers whirring like a storm.

Freshly husked rice will go right into the steamer,

Jade kernels will glow in the wicker bin.

For years I've eaten from the government granary

Reddish rotting rice no better than dirt.

Finally I'll know a new taste,

I've already promised my mouth and belly.

 

No.5

 

Good farmers do not wear out their land,

Luckily, this plot has lain fallow ten years.

The mulberry trees are not yet mature,

But I'm already looking forward to a crop of wheat.

It's less than a month since I did the sowing,

Even now the tilled soil shows some green.

An old farmer came and told me,

"Don't let the sprouts get thick with leaves;

If you want ample noodles and dumplings,

Let sheep and oxen in to graze."

I bow twice in thanks for this frank advice,

When my stomach's full, I won't forget him.

 

(Ronald Egan, Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi, p. 230.)